This past week was top notch. It was the best week in a while. If I’m going to be honest, it’s probably the best I’ve felt, behaved and went about my day since August.

I’m starting to feel more clear headed and I think I’m finally figuring out my place. I’m figuring out how I’m connected to things around me and trust me that sounds way more hippy dippy than I want it to, but it’s true.

Last week I talked about the trial that I’m working on with a group of people for goal coaching. Goal setting is something I’m good at personally. I have no issue talking to myself about the bigger picture and breaking it down into smaller bites or milestones. I do this in fundraising too – my profession, but assisting someone else is a different story. Instead of just one people making the bet, two people are. They both have to be committed to determining what success is and working as a team to get there.

I have no clue if I’m going to be good at assisting anyone aside from myself and that’s the purpose of the trial. I originally said I would take on five individuals because I didn’t think anyone would have any interest in actually working with me. See there’s that self doubt. Saying I’m inspiring is different than wanting to team up together. After I saw the amount of interest, I reevaluated and decided that I would take on about 10 trial clients. This is the number I believe I want to have when I launch live in January and since the interest was great enough, I believed I could find 10 people that I would want to work with, that I believed actually needed help and that I felt confident in my own abilities to help. I found 12.

I’ll be working with all 12 for the month of December and this means I’ll be assisting them in determining their long term goals and the short term milestones to help achieve or get closer to those larger goals. All 12 have different goals from health to education, but for every person, all of their goals are intertwined. I don’t think many of them realized that, but if you goals are to 1. lose weight 2. find a better outlet for stress that doesn’t involve food and 3. figure out how to give yourself personal time, it’s clear that if you are always on the go and interacting with everyone around you that your stress is going to be high and if you turn to food then your overall health and weight loss goals will go out the window. This will also be cyclical because you will more than likely beat yourself up for overeating, binging or breaking your plan.We are notorious for being assholes to ourselves.

So how do you reach those goals? How do you accomplish goals that don’t necessarily have metrics?

You talk about what a typical day looks like. You think about times that you are stressed out and the factors that are causing it, maybe the feeling or thoughts going through your head at the time. You think about your lifestyle including your relationships and work schedule and figure out what is realistic for you, not Suzy down the street. You think about a timeline that you believe you would be happy with to accomplish your goals. It’s not a race unless you create one. You set goals that are attainable because they are made for you, like going to the gym two to three times a week, not six days when you have a family of five and work a 35 hour week.

This is how I goal set. This is how I figure out my plan for the week or the month or a few months depending on my goals.

This trial means that I’ll get feedback about my approach to overall health and life – that’s a little intimidating, but these people are allowing me into their lives and telling me how I fit, so it only makes sense to talk them along the way about how we create a plan together using my methods and reasoning. My hope is that together they will have their eyes opened wider than before, they will stop seeing doubt and will start seeing and understanding their own capabilities. They will feel like they can learn something new and that if they take a tiny puddle jump then it’s not so scary. I want them to feel empowered and to own this process because it’s their journey and I’m along for the ride. But I also know that some of them may take a little bit of pushing to get there.

I’m also hoping that by working with these people, volunteering my time for December, I’ll gain more clarity and be a slighter brighter, more shiny Cristina. I’m not just helping them with their goals, I’m testing my own.

Six weeks ago I told you that I was going on medical leave to deal with my PTSD and for the past six weeks I’ve been working with my therapist, journaling, eating, lifting, reading and trying to figure out what went wrong. All I know is, I did nothing wrong. I could’ve gone in a million different directions and I still would’ve ended up here. Last week during my therapy session before the holiday, my therapist said he thought I was getting better, but I’m not just there yet. There’s still work to do, so he’s extending my leave until the new year.

At first, I didn’t know how I felt about it. I thought – how can I help these people with their goals if I can’t have my life in order? He told me to think about that statement and what I’m actually saying. I can help these people with their goals because I am good at analyzing situations and resources and goal setting. This is completely in my control. He said that he thought that December would be good for me too because it might just be the reassurance I need.

I’m going to be honest because that’s the best way to be. I’m nervous and scared, but hoping for the best. I’m hoping that this is what JP and I need to get the rest of our relationship where we want it to. Maybe this is what I need so I don’t continue to break from mental exhaustion. My friend Miriam said when we met in August she was nervous for me because she could tell I was always on the go. That’s how I like to be, but it’s different when you are in control versus being pushed by external factors. She also said that she was so happy when I said I was taking leave because I deserved to stop and watch the world spin around me, I deserved a break.

So, for the next five weeks I’m going to keep on journaling and lifting and eating and now developing my own coaching abilities. I’m building on a theory – people are more capable than they know, but they need help figuring out their path and learning where to pull resources from so they go full throttle. I need to remind myself of this all the time and I’m looking forward to December as I work through my goals, set some new ones and help others figure out their own.

No reason to wait until the calendar changes. Today we start doing great things because we are more capable than we know.